Trades Talk Podcast

Justin White
  • 5.0 (23)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Trades Talk Podcast is a captivating and dynamic program that is led by Justin White. He’ll delve into the triumphs of various trade industries, showcasing the successes of those who have made a significant impact. With his extensive network of industry connections, Justin provides an unparalleled view into the world of visionary leaders. Prepare to be inspired and enlightened with the trade secrets, career advice, and business tips that are shared. Make sure to have a notepad on hand, as this show promises to be an unforgettable journey!

  1. 20h ago

    Jerry Schill: How the Landscape Collective Scaled to $200M and 2,000 Team Members

    This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Jerry Schill, CEO of The Landscape Collective. Jerry has built a maintenance driven organization at roughly $200M in revenue, 2,000 team members, 36 locations across 8 states and Canada, 93 percent recurring revenue, and 21 acquisitions since partnering with private equity. Jerry unpacks the "business in a box" concept that let him refine a 15 profit center P&L into one hedgehog, the two PE recaps that funded the run, and the leadership principles that keep 2,000 people aligned across a continent. He also shares why frontline incentive pay turned into a disincentive, why he only "meddles" when the numbers slip, and why "somebody's always coming" is the mindset that has kept him hungry for 34 years. In this episode: The Business in a Box playbook: Jim Collins' hedgehog applied to maintenance, laser focus on people utilization and asset utilization, and how that becomes portable enough to bolt into 21 acquisitions The three core values that gate every hire and fire: employee centered, customer focused, champions in the communities we serve Why incentive pay works for account managers, ops managers, and branch managers, but became a disincentive at the frontline and had to be uncoupled PE demystified: two recaps (Argon Capital, then TruArc in December 2025), what actually happens the day after the wire hits, and why PE only steps in when things go sideways Jerry's biggest takeaway is simple. Do good, stay focused, hire slow and fire fast, and remember that somebody is always coming. Purpose is what carries you when the numbers get hard, not the other way around. If you are a 5 to 30 million dollar operator wondering whether focus really wins at scale, considering PE, or trying to build a company that survives past your day at the helm, this one is required listening. JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo The Landscape Collective: https://www.thelandscapecollective.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

    Jerry Schill: How the Landscape Collective Scaled to $200M and 2,000 Team Members

  2. 5d ago

    Weekly Update #57: K&D's 300% Maintenance Sales Jump and the 54% AI Adoption Gap

    On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White unpacks the 300 percent year over year jump in K&D maintenance sales, the Service Titan State of AI Survey that every trades operator should have on their desk, and why quality of AI output now matters more than quantity. Justin also digs into the AI headlines that actually matter (local models running on the iPhone, Anthropic's race to a $3 trillion IPO, Claude Cowork on mobile), calls out the ones that are just noise, and gets on the soapbox about the AI-generated marketing garbage flooding trades inboxes. In this episode, we cover: The K&D pivot from MA hunting to fully organic growth, 300 percent year over year maintenance sales growth, and why the operational team saying yes is what makes it possible The Service Titan State of AI Survey: 66 percent of trades operators expect major AI transformation, only 12 percent have actually embedded it, and the 54 percent gap that is your window to strike Prism ML's Bonsai 27B running a 27 billion parameter model locally on an iPhone in 3.9 GB, and why every technician's phone is about to become an AI data center Anthropic overtaking OpenAI in annualized revenue on the race to a $3 trillion IPO, OpenAI's proposed 5 percent government stake ($42.6B), Gemini 3.5 Pro, and ChatGPT 5.6 The quality over quantity manifesto: stop shipping AI slop budgets, flyers, and newsletters, and start using AI at an enterprise grade Plus a callback to last week's Steve Wheatcroft episode (the B minus business plan that scaled to $100M), a preview of Jerry Schill next Wednesday, and the Kress Voyager 60-inch demo that is quietly reshaping autonomous mowing in the industry. If you are a trades operator sitting in the 54 percent AI adoption gap, running a growth playbook that is not yet clicking, or a leader who knows your team is producing AI content that is not up to your standards, this one is the wake up call. Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! JW Group Website / Justin LinkedIn / Justin Instagram / Justins Youtube K&D Website / K&D Instagram Disruptors Community Disruptors Advantage Newsletter

    Weekly Update #57: K&D's 300% Maintenance Sales Jump and the 54% AI Adoption Gap

  3. Jul 15

    Steve Wheatcroft: From a B Minus Business Plan to Canada's Biggest Landscape Company

    This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Steve Wheatcroft, founder of ULS (now Urban Life Solutions), the largest landscape company in Canada. Steve scaled ULS from a 1989 college business plan that earned a B minus to nearly 400 trucks across Canada and a private equity sale, then ran the platform up to roughly $100 million before stepping out. He goes deep on the all in mindset shift that unlocked hyper growth, why operations beats sales every single time, and the candid story of what it actually feels like to be a founder CEO trying to run a private equity owned company. (Spoiler: he calls it the skinny jeans story.) In this episode: Why "top line vanity, bottom line sanity, cash flow is king" is the real scoreboard The Terrible 25 framework, why the bottom 25 percent of your contracts cancel out the top 25 Operations beats sales, "I'd shoot the head of sales between the eyes before the head of ops" 50M Thinking, the one-line mantra that pulled an entire company up to $50 million in revenue Steve's takeaway is simple. Build the brand, deliver the service, hold your pricing, and you do not have to win every deal. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is leave your quote in the second place pile and wait for the other guy to drop the ball. If you are a founder building toward an exit, a CEO who has already exited and is figuring out what's next, or anyone running a maintenance company stuck at low single digit margin, this one is a master class from someone who has done it at the highest level. JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Steve LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/steve-wheatcroft-1b89371b2 Wheatcroft Advisory: https://wheatcroftadvisory.com/ K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

    Steve Wheatcroft: From a B Minus Business Plan to Canada's Biggest Landscape Company

  4. Jul 11

    Weekly Update #56: Teasing the K&D Operating System and Why Justin Is Stepping Back

    On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White unpacks Q3 planning at K&D, teases the K&D Operating System for the first time publicly, and announces he is stepping back from day to day so he can lead the next chapter as a true CEO. Justin walks through the 90 day planning cadence that has now run 42 quarters without a miss, the hub and spoke design of the KD OS that sits between Aspire, QuickBooks, Predictive Index, Bloom, and Slack, and the non-negotiable vision that anchors it all: a $100,000 minimum wage by 2035. In this episode, we cover: The 42-quarter planning cadence, why departmental sessions must follow the leadership session, and how alignment breaks the moment you skip a level The K&D OS reveal: a bespoke intelligence layer with a user experience that adapts to each teammate's Predictive Index profile Building an agentic community inside K&D: EST agents for career pathing, PI behavioral agents, and irrigation audit agents that generate proposals from Aspire data Justin's sabbatical, John stepping in as de facto CEO, Kendel White staying on as President, and the 2028 vision (Santa Barbara to Santa Clara, doubled revenue, dominant market position) The AI market outlook: Anthropic at a $47B run rate, a potential $2 to $3 trillion IPO, and Fable 5's usage credits kicking in July 13 Justin's biggest takeaway is simple. The billion dollar enterprise value, the IPO, the equity for employees, those are hopes. The $100,000 minimum wage by 2035 is the non-negotiable, and every operating system, every agent, every planning cadence is built to protect it. If you are a trades operator thinking about how to actually institutionalize AI, planning cadence, or a founder step-back without losing the plot, this one is your playbook. Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! JW Group Website / Justin LinkedIn / Justin Instagram / Justins Youtube K&D Website / K&D Instagram Disruptors Community Disruptors Advantage Newsletter

    Weekly Update #56: Teasing the K&D Operating System and Why Justin Is Stepping Back

  5. Jul 8

    Tim Hendricks: Lessons From Valley Crest, Cagwin, and the High End Residential World

    This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Tim Hendricks, a 40 plus year California landscape industry veteran who built his chops at Valley Crest, Cagwin & Dorward, BrightView, Site One, and is now running high end residential design build on the Peninsula. Tim walks through the lessons he absorbed from his mentor Roger Fisk, the three things Cagwin did better than anyone (and most still do not), and the playbook for landing and delivering custom estate projects where the budget is "cost plus" and the materials take six months to arrive from Portugal. In this episode: Cagwin's three secret weapons: field-level financial transparency, real leadership training, and 8 percent compounding growth instead of 15-then-0 Why "we sell hours" is the most important sentence in commercial maintenance, and what most owners get wrong about it The contrarian truth on prospecting: stop chasing dog properties and start qualifying out the wrong customers The long lead time and cash flow trap that crushes contractors trying to break into high end residential Tim's biggest takeaway is simple. Don't sell yourself short, do not paint yourself into a corner to win a job, and there is the right contractor for every customer (it just might not be you). If you are running a maintenance company stuck at 5 percent margin, eyeing high end residential, or trying to build the next great landscape company on the West Coast, this one is required listening. JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

    Tim Hendricks: Lessons From Valley Crest, Cagwin, and the High End Residential World

  6. Jul 3

    Weekly Update #55: Fable 5, The Trillion Dollar Coach, and Permission to Cancel That Meeting

    It's Fourth of July weekend and K&D is going for the three peat on most patriotic float in tomorrow's parade. But before the fireworks, we've got work to do. This week I'm covering three things every trades leader needs right now. First, Fable 5. Anthropic's newest model is here and most of you aren't even scratching the surface. I walk through exactly how I'm using it: writing proposals and RFP responses, deep research on M&A activity in our industry (223 confirmed transactions and counting), and training it to run legacy software workflows so your team stops clicking buttons and starts reviewing drafts. I also share how it did a complete takeoff on a residential design project and priced it within a few points of a job we already won. Second, Bill Campbell. The Trillion Dollar Coach who worked with Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt. I built a Claude project trained on his coaching style and I've been talking to it almost every day. It pushes back. It gets to the core issue. It got me frustrated, which is exactly what a good coach should do. Link below so you can use it or build your own. Third, burnout. We're 182 days into the year and a lot of you are feeling it. Heavy mornings. Emails you keep putting off. Sunday night dread. I name what burnout actually looks like and give you three moves: stop looking to your business as your only source of fulfillment, cancel the one meeting you're dreading most, and audit the people draining your energy. One person can derail your entire year. Don't let them. Burnout is not a weakness. Talk about it. Deal with it. Then get back to work. Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! Go demo the self propelled 21 inch mower. Bill Campbell Coach Project:  JW Group Website / Justin LinkedIn  Disruptors Community Disruptors Advantage Newsletter

    Weekly Update #55: Fable 5, The Trillion Dollar Coach, and Permission to Cancel That Meeting

  7. Jul 1

    Ben Hansen: Why More Revenue Will Not Fix Your Profit Problem

    This week on Trades Talk, Justin White sits down with Ben Hansen, founder of Profit Doctor. Ben is a 5x Inc. 5000 founder who scaled his own staffing business from zero to $13 million with 100 employees, and now helps 7 and 8 figure CEOs stop the financial bleeding and become "overpaid entrepreneurs." Justin opens up about K&D's own profit story: $2.5M of net profit on $20M in revenue at the end of 2024, a $650K loss in Q1 2025, and the climb back to a 3-5% net margin on $25M today. Ben walks through the exact prescription to fix it. In this episode: Why "profititis" (revenue going up while profit goes flat or down) is the real diagnosis behind most trades businesses Money Mondays, the simple 90-minute weekly habit that compounds profitability faster than any sales push Contribution margin vs gross profit, and why most trades PLs are quietly hiding the real number The 50-20 Rule: cut half of your worst 20 percent of services in the next 30 days Ben's biggest takeaway is simple. You cannot sell your way out of a profit problem. Profitability comes from intentional decisions on your calendar, not from more revenue. If you are a trades CEO running on 0-5 percent net margin, working harder every year, and wondering why the money is not showing up, this one is a wake-up call and a playbook in the same hour. JW Group Website: https://www.jwhitegroup.com/ Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-white-%E2%98%85-35b7a210b/ Justin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinwhiteceo/ Justins Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justinwhiteceo Ben LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benhansen/ Profit Doctor: https://profitdoctor.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/benhansen https://www.instagram.com/profitdoctorben/ https://www.youtube.com/@profitdoctorben K&D Website: https://kndlandscaping.com/ K&D Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kanddlandscaping/ Disruptors Community: https://www.skool.com/disruptors Disruptors Advantage Newsletter: https://disruptors-advantage.beehiiv.com/

    Ben Hansen: Why More Revenue Will Not Fix Your Profit Problem

  8. Jun 26

    Weekly Update #54: Inside the K&D AI Operating System with Sean Laux

    On this Weekly Update of Trades Talk, Justin White is joined by Sean Laux, K&D's leader of innovation and technology, kicking off a new chapter of the Friday show: weekly deep dives on AI inside a trades business. Sean and Justin break down the K&D AI stack, why most CEOs are getting AI wrong, and how to actually find ROI in a market where 56 percent of CEOs say AI has delivered nothing. In this episode, we cover: The K&D AI operating system: normalized database, MCPs, and Justin's "Reggie" Claude agent Why a CFO skill that runs three recursive QA loops is replacing the CFO hire (and the Instagram hate that followed) Dan Martell's three levels of AI (assistant, automation, agent team) and where almost no one lives The AI guru warning: why a $250K retainer firm cannot understand your workflow in a day Two assignments for the week: run a 10 to 20 question self-interview with AI on a problem you cannot solve, and build your first Claude Cowork automated task (a daily brief is a great starting point). If you are a trades CEO under board pressure to ship AI ROI, a tech-curious operator just getting started, or anyone who has burned cash on an AI consultant and gotten nothing, this episode is the playbook. Weekly Updates are powered by Kress! JW Group Website / Justin LinkedIn / Justin Instagram / Justins Youtube K&D Website / K&D Instagram Disruptors Community Disruptors Advantage Newsletter

    Weekly Update #54: Inside the K&D AI Operating System with Sean Laux
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5
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

Trades Talk Podcast is a captivating and dynamic program that is led by Justin White. He’ll delve into the triumphs of various trade industries, showcasing the successes of those who have made a significant impact. With his extensive network of industry connections, Justin provides an unparalleled view into the world of visionary leaders. Prepare to be inspired and enlightened with the trade secrets, career advice, and business tips that are shared. Make sure to have a notepad on hand, as this show promises to be an unforgettable journey!

Information

  • Creator
    Justin White
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    Trades Talk Podcast

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